It's been two weeks since my last confession. And it will have to wait two more if you're reading for detail. For now, I have limited time so I'll quickly expound on the topics of Jerusalem Day, which happened this past week, and the goings on in Sderot. Jerusalem Day celebrates the reunification of the city in 1967, and it used to be a national holiday. Today, it is primarily the holiday of the national-religious sector. Now, I know that it seems like this blog is out to prove that the knitted kippas are the only Zionists left in Israel. And while that does happen to be partially true, the reality is that, just like last year, Jerusalem was packed with national religious youth from yeshiva high schools, pre-military yeshivas and higher yeshivot. They came on organized group trips from all over Israel to attend the festivities. There were also massive showings of families. Total numbers are estimated at several hundred thousand. Said festivities were described in detail in a Jerusalem Day post of last year. There was marches, music, and the most numerically large group prayer/music session the Kotel Plaza sees all year. I can assure you that there was no secular representation at Jerusalem Day and, in fact, the left-wing media derided the event and tried to do its best to keep the spotlight off it, despite the sheer magnitude of the crowds and the meaning the holiday holds for the still Zionist populations in Israel's society.

In the IDF, we had a rabbi, who served in my unit in his youth, come and give a speech about the meaningfulness of having Jerusalem as our capital, the uniqueness of Israel and its centrality in world events, and the importance of military service as a means to ensure our survival. It was an inspiring speech, filled with quotes from the Torah and from Israel's leaders. Not the current trash that stinks up the Knesset, but the purer, ideological leaders of a generation ago. There was also a moment when the rabbi mentioned that there were a lot of crazy Americans in the unit who left their privileged existance and came to serve the Jewish people. The audience erupted in a good five minutes of applause and I have to say that it felt damn good to be given such a massive public display of appreciation. I generally have to deal with the pessimistic attitude of my fellow soldiers, so seeing that when their emotions are revealed, they really are impressed with the Americans who are such quality additions to their units, it uplifts the heart.

I think there are a lot of poorly written sentences in this post, but I am tired from drinking beer and eating freshly grilled burgers, so you must forgive me. I am turning in, and I will be back in two weeks with another update. By that point, I may have some detail for you on next weekend, which will be spent in the city of Hebron. I will try not to start a newsworthy incident, but I am somewhat of a firebrand, so you never know. Wearing the ceramic vest is going to be beyond uncomfortable, but I will get to pray in the Cave of the Patriarchs, so it'll be worthwhile.

Since I last posted, my army experience has gotten significantlay more serious. Basic training was easy and fun relative to the intensity of advanced training. The physical and psychological pressure is mounting. Everyone in my unit is counting down the days until training is over and we can get a week's vacation before our first assignment. Sadly, I cannot write on this blog about the details of my training, as it is now in the classified stage. Were I in a different unit, I would be able to discuss my training more freely, but I am not, so I will have to describe advanced training in vague generalities and devote more time in my blog to broader topics. The focus will still be on Israel, of course.

The first broad topic will be illustrated by a narrow example. My platoon started basic training with 42 fresh-faced recruits, all of whom had to pass rigorous tests in order to be admitted into the unit. Now, with 6 months of training behind us and 2 more months to go, we have 32 soldiers left, with 10 of them on the injured list. Of those injured, about 5 are actually in the process of being transferred out. So, in effect, my platoon is 27 strong. We've lost 36% of our platoon to a combination of actual injuries, imagined injuries, but more commonly - the inability of people to find the inner motivation to handle the mental aspects of training. We are 64% of our original strength, and the figure is more or less similar in the two other platoons of my training company. It must be noted that none of the religious guys, kibbutznikim or Americans have left the unit. And that doesn't mean that those three groups are great physical specimens. It means that they are the only ones with the motivation to ignore the stresses of training and keep pushing themselves.

Since I am in that mood, let me also rail against my least favorite group in Israeli society - the secular, middle to upper-middle class Tel-Aviv area materialist hedonists. We started out with 9 such guys in my platoon, we now have 3 left. One of the three who are left is most likely leaving soon, so make that two. Proportionate to their percentage of the draftable population, we should have 13 of these guys left in the platoon. But, as those who have left us have made it clear, it is almost impossible to continue training when all of their friends are partying it up every single night because they chose to serve in the slacker part of the army. The part where "soldiers" have every other week off. Yes, you read the last sentence correctly. The Tel-Avivis and their kindred spirits in places like Ramat Gan, Herziliyah, Petakh Tikva and so on, find positions in the army where they "serve" for five days, while going home every night, and then have 9 full days at home before they have to report back to the army. That's known as "hamesh-tesha" the "five-nine" service framework. I was also shocked by how bootleg and wasteful that is. They are practically spending 3 years living at home, doing nothing, maybe working part-time, and partying it up. Every other week that have to show up and drink coffee from 8am to 4pm, but that's about all the army requires of them. Ridiculous.

Well, the important thing is that there are enough motivated guys to keep this IDF thing going, but our numbers are lacking. Anyone out there who is motivated - get your butt to Israel and pick up a gun. The situation isn't critical yet, but unless there's a Zionist renewal, it will get critical sooner than we think. And the Arabs are sensing our weakness. They saw that we weren't quite as strong in Southern Lebanon as we could have been. Our society is getting Americanized. Fatter, lazier, more materalistic. The enemy, on the other hand, is getting leaner, meaner and more fanatical. The Nation of Israel had better wake up. There's a dearth of Zionist motivation, and it's been hurting the IDF for the past 15-20 years. Luckily, the birthrate in the national-religious sector has propped up the army with an ever-growing batch of motivated recruits coming out of national-religious education system. And we still have the kibbutznikim/moshavnikim and the new immigrants to rely on. But the majority of Israeli society doesn't fit into these categories and it is that majority that has lost the will to fight.

Will the religious birthrate make up for the recruitment problem in the secular sector before the Arabs force us to jump ship? I don't know, but it doesn't look good. We need more Zionists here. Simple as that.